February’s NPAC speaker was Lisa Judge, SPD’s Inspector General of the Office of Inspector General. OIG is tasked with systemic oversight of SPD, and also has oversight of Office of Police Accountability.
North Precinct Captain Kevin Grossman reports that staffing in the precinct is getting a little better, but is still far below sufficient to handle the 911 call load. They routinely see 30-40 911 calls holding, with wait times for non-priority calls (such as burglaries that already happened) that could be 6 hours or more. He looks forward to the city developing alternative resources for calls that don’t require police, but until they are ramped up, SPD still responds.
Read all the minutes here.
As an aside, to review how police service in the north precinct has changed over the last few years, consider this:
- Our crime prevention coordinator position has been vacant for 18 months. CPCs can help start block watches, do security checks of our homes and give advise on improvements, meet with community groups, etc.
- The Community Police Team has been disbanded. CPT worked with the neighborhood on chronic problems like noise nuisances, drug houses, graffiti, etc.
- The precinct no longer has a Detective Squad that can investigate crimes like burglaries. And whereas citywide there used to be 30 detectives, now there are only 11 in the centralized unit.
- The precinct Bike Team was discontinued. The bike team was a less intimidating way to have police presence in the community, and roved around to help as needed.
- The precinct Anti-Crime Team is no longer. It used to, among other things, deal with organized retail theft.
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